1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Friday 1st Gen poll for consideration….

Does cabin air filter with arrow go up or down ?

1 up
2 down
3 does it matter
4 1st is not a turd

 

I vote 4

 

I had frugal parents but no good reason why I had as much interest in electrical systems. I wish I had more input / guidance but neither parent could provide that. I am looking forward to having time to indulge in mechanical learning in retirement. And maybe some woodworking but that can get expensive.

 

I second that vote.

 

I like the fact that the milwaukees slow down after it breaks the bolt loose but I’m just nitpicking

 

Yours if you want it. Gives me an excuse to get a 20v. Has 2 good batteries too.

 

You're selling that DeWalt stubby?

 

I probably want to b/c it's 12v and the only thing I can think of using it for now that the play structure is done would be lug nuts. And I'm not sure it has adequate torque for breaking those. So I'd probably rather have a big mac daddy for "oh s" moments vs this little wimpy/lightweight one. Because I can't think of any good use case for a medium duty something.

Mostly I bought by mistake, thought it was 20v and didn't read closely enough. All my other stuff is 20v.

 

At least you tried. Thats more than a lot of men will do.

On the way home from a nieces birthday party my brother in law (of towel rack fame) called me saying his friend has a flat and needs help. I flipped a U turn and headed back.

I arrived on scene to find my brother in law and his buddy standing beside a Prius. His buddy's wife was holding their young boy in a stroller and she was pregnant with #2, and it was Summer time. I told her to go sit in my truck with the AC on, bring the boy. I looked over the scene and a front tire was flat. They managed to get the spare out and thats about it.

I grabbed my jack and tools from my truck and lifted the rear, swapped the spare for a rear tire, then moved to the front and swapped the rear (good tire) for the flat, then dropped the flat in the back. Took me all of 20 minutes while teaching the other 2 guys what to do and why. The guys wife gave me a big sweaty hug and they were on their way. I never mind helping people out, but it baffles me when dudes don't even try.

 

Yeah, after that encounter I stocked up on tools. I still have no decent jack but I have a breaker bar now and a nice set of sockets. Also learned the trick to torque up instead of down so you can use your legs, didn't think of that in the moment. Having the right tools helps a lot. The stock tools are useless if a tire shop uses an air gun to torque the s out of the lugs. 12" of leverage doesn't do much against that.

 

Yeah, I was explaining to a few of my 19-20 year old apprenti about gaming in the 90s and how there were no save points. About how when Metroid came out it was awesome having a "save". About how the video game crash of 83 almost ruined gaming.

Also, on the tradesman front, I'm the electrician that would make sure all my romex was flattened out and didn't cross each other when stapling it down the studs. I layed out how they went into the box and followed that throughout the house. All switches had the hot on the bottom, switch leg on top. The romexes went into the panel on the side the breaker they landed on was on. That was when I was a 2nd year apprentice and had just gotten my wiremans license. 15 years later and a shitload of commercial work later I'm a neurotic OCD bastard that won't let lazy work fly on my job. They do it right, no matter how many times it takes them.

We are out there. We're just becoming scarce.

 

Ever leave the Nintendo on pause and turn the TV off, only to have a parent notice and turn it off? That was the worst.

 

YES! I did that multiple times trying to beat bionic commando!

I also had to tell them about that and how hard Nintendo games were back then. I told them to play cuphead. It's like a Nintendo game with modern graphics.

 

That's some good stuff. I've never done anything more than adding stuff after the fact so it's hard to be so detailed but I really do like that level of organization and attention to detail.

 

I tried to like this post twice and it un-liked it on attempt 2....so I clicked a third time.

Now that brings back some memories.

 

I may have posted this before, but here's a clean-up job I did about 6 years ago. People just kept adding to this system and fucked it all up. We had to move the box over about 4' to make room for another conveyor to come through. Took about 16 hours to do it. Main brain controller for the conveyors at a national shipping company.

 

Def looked better before.

 

Nice job !
Worked with similar engine generator, TX/RX and telecommunication enclosures with Uncle Sam. In all my 40 years working there, I never could understand how most of our Techs could leave for the day after shoddy/messy work similar to that. I want to believe that today some of my young cohorts at the time remembers back to how Uncle Bubba left a job before closing the door enclosure. Keep up the good work, you appreciate the finish product even if others don't.

 

That makes me sad, and just know, guys like me appreciate the hell out of you.

When you say you're OCD, are you so OCD you line your screws up on cover plates?

 

Of course he does.

 

Yup. And if they're horizontal the screws have to be horizontal too.

 

DITTO BROTHER DITTO!
It's a VERY handy trait to possess!
I'm constantly being asked, "How do you know that?"
I simply respond, "How is it you don't?"

 

Next time I'm at the brewery, I'll send pics of the control panel. It's not quite as clean as what you've got pictured there, but I think you'll be able to appreciate it, considering neither I or my EE bud who do it all are licensed. He found two flaws in the manufacturer's schematics to boot, they tried to tell him he was wrong .

 

I'm pretty sure that wire / routing job picture was by you when we were talking switchpros. That was beyond excellent. Makes everyone else want to give up!

 

Here's a j-box I made up recently:



It's not much, but some of these "electricians" here will just make it up and cram it in there. Makes it a bitch to add anything or even close the cover.

 

4

 

This is the type of shit I pay extra to line up if I can't or don't want to do the work. If I know someone goes to this level of thoroughness, I'll pay 50% more just to make sure they're the one on-site to complete the work if I have to.

I need to run a subpanel in my "man cave" side of the basement soon, then wire it out, frame in a bathroom, overhaul our water heater situation, and overhaul our HVAC (it's all on my man cave side, with my shop bench, tools and other stuff). I've got to talk to the GC we used for our bathrooms because I really don't want to manage it myself with all the shit I have going on at work right now. I want to see some pics of what his guy typically does for panel and new work.

It's gotten really damn hard to find people who'll spend the time on a single job with the huge boom going on right now.

 

You can usually fit it all in the box if it's done this way, not so much with the Helter Skelter technique! NICELY DONE!

 

I’m liking patriotic lineup

 

Here you go @bmf4069 I found some pics from near-end of the job. Hadn't gotten the dark grey 2-conductor signal cables for tank temp probes tidied up, and the orange 4-conductor cables lacked IFM end install.

I asked him to take another pic this week, or I'd run up there and grab one, good excuse to drink free beer.